12 Unexpected Ways to Use LEGO in the Classroom

LEGO Bricks are toys. They’re items that students willingly seek out to play with and get excited to receive as gifts under the Christmas tree. That’s one of the things that make them so useful to teachers. Lessons taught using LEGO Bricks don’t feel like dull schoolwork. On the contrary, students might feel like they’re getting away with something. They actually get to play with LEGO Bricks in class?

The idea that students can learn something valuable from play isn’t new, or even controversial. A sizeable body of research has been conducted to back up what many teachers already knew to be true. Fun and learning don’t have to be mutually exclusive, and it really works better for everyone involved when they’re not.

As such, making LEGO Bricks part of your lesson plan can help you teach concepts that students might otherwise find tedious, in a way that doesn’t feel like work to them. Many educators have already been putting this idea to the test with success. Here are a few ideas to get you started.

Using LEGO Bricks to Teach Math Visually

Many students are visual learners and will have an easier time grasping mathematical concepts if they can see them demonstrated in a visually compelling way. LEGO can help with that.

1. LEGO Bricks can teach students about counting and measuring.

Photo courtesy of LEGO Education

For younger students, LEGO Bricks can be useful for covering some of the basics of learning numbers. Connect a bunch of LEGO Bricks and have your students count them one at a time. Make the exercise more interactive by challenging them to measure different items around the room (or themselves – how many bricks long is your arm?). If you write numbers onto your LEGO set, as in the example linked to above, you can help them learn numerals in the process.

Since LEGO Bricks come in many sizes and each have a number of studs that align to their size, you can use them to show what arithmetic problems look like. Scholastic.com gives a few examples of the forms that can take.

A square piece with four studs helps students see what 2×2 looks like. If you connect that piece to a rectangular one with eight studs, students can count out what 4+8 is. By setting different pieces side by side, you can show how fractions work ­– this one is ½ the size of that one, which is ¼ of the size of this other one.

LEGO’s More to Math sets come with even more ideas and ways to use the familiar bricks for visualizing mathematical concepts. The company provides curriculum packs with lessons built from common core standards, as well as whiteboard software that lets you demonstrate the concepts explored on a screen for everyone to see.

A pattern can be as simple as alternating between two colors, like red-green-red-green-red. Or, patterns can be used to provide a more complicated challenge, like asking your students to create an object that demonstrates one of math’s famous sequences, like triangle numbers or square numbers. Symmetrical objects can take on any form a student can come up with, as long as one side mirrors another.

Using LEGO Bricks to Create (or Illustrate) Stories

4. LEGO Bricks can be used to illustrate a historical story.

History lessons can be dry words on a page, or they can be an exercise in imagining what being there was like. Students tasked with building a model of the attack on the Bastille or creating a labyrinth inspired by the one in Greek mythology will be more actively engaged with those lessons than they would be after merely reading about them in a textbook.

5. LEGO Bricks can help inspire a new story.

Your students are probably already doing this if they play with LEGO Bricks at home (or have a good example of how it works if they’ve seen The LEGO Movie). In class, you can encourage students to do it collaboratively in groups or to share the stories they’ve used the LEGO Bricks to create. You can add an extra (and fun) challenge by having one student create a scene with LEGO Bricks, then have another come up with a story based on what they see.

The examples we’ve given are homemade, but LEGO Education also provides curriculum to promote writing and literacy skills with their StoryStarter kits. These kits give students a little structure to start with in constructing their stories. They come with characters, sets to build, and beginning, middle and end boards upon which to construct the stories. The kits leave your students plenty of room for creativity, but it encourages them to exercise it within the classic story structure, thereby subtly teaching story construction.

6. LEGO Bricks can be one component in a larger multimedia storytelling project.

Using LEGO Bricks for Writing Practice

7. Create letters out of the LEGO Bricks.

Students still learning their letters can take a break from laborious handwriting exercises by building their letters out of LEGO Bricks. Wildflower Ramblings has made cards available in both uppercase and lowercase letters that can make the process a little easier to start. But once they have the hang of it, they can probably tackle the task on their own. Just draw a big letter L on the board, and have your students compete to making the coolest-looking letter in town!

8. Stick letters to each LEGO so students can create words from them.

Moving one step up the learning chain, add letter stickers on each LEGO for all the different letters of the alphabet, so students can get practice putting them together in different combinations By building with their LEGO Bricks, they’ll now be creating words and getting some fun practice with basic spelling. It’s like Scrabble, for tykes.

9. Attach words to each LEGO so students can create sentences.

The obvious next step up is to add whole words to your LEGO Bricks, so students can practice building sentences. “Writing” becomes a tactile game they can play.

Using LEGO Bricks to Demonstrate Thought Exercises

10. LEGO Bricks can help teach students about classification systems.

Photo courtesy of LEGO Education

You can tell students about how scientists classify things like plants, animals, and elements, but the categories are more complicated than they look on the surface. Someone somewhere along the way had to make a choice about which traits to group things by.

If you ask students to work out a classification system for their LEGO sets, they’ll be challenged to do the same. Should they group them based on color, size, or shape? What kind of names should they assign to each category? Different students might end up with different systems altogether.

As such, this is a great lesson in looking for patterns and logic in taxonomic systems. Your students will come away from it with a deeper understanding of the many ways the world can be ordered.

11. LEGO Bricks can get students thinking about city planning challenges.

Challenging your students to build a city out of their LEGO Bricks isn’t just a fun imagination game; doing so will give your students a deeper understanding of the world around them, and perhaps get them looking at the simplest city structures in a new way.

Make clear the task is not as simple as building a few houses. They have to think about what every city needs, as well as what most residents will want. They’ll have to make room for roads, trees, sidewalks, and all those other elements of city planning they probably take for granted every day without considering the fact that someone had to plan and build them. Not only will this give your students a new perspective, it will help them see the world as one big problem solving challenge — one they’re well equipped to solve.

12. LEGO Bricks can help teach coding.

Photo courtesy of LEGO Education

One teacher had the novel idea of giving students a computerless coding project using LEGO Bricks. Students had to write out a code that tells “robots” (in this exercise, the other students), how to build LEGO Bricks into different shapes. In coding, every step and command is crucial, so having to act out imperfect codes teaches each student how valuable every little component is to the larger whole in a way that’s more meaningful (and less obnoxious) than computer error messages.

In Short

Of course, we didn’t even mention the many building and robotics exercises LEGO Bricks are commonly used for. Consider how many subjects and activities in life involve building blocks (physically and metaphorically), and you’ll see how expansive the list of subjects these endlessly useful tools can be applied to. Bring LEGO Bricks into any lesson, and you immediately add an element of fun, without losing any learning benefits.

7 Comments

LEGOs provide a great resource to learning. A multi learning opportunity to help children understand how they process information. I like the storytime option. Use a smart phone or iPad to create a digital story.

Axu

July 8, 2015 at 11:25 am

Interesting concept for various applications of Lego. I read about this turtle that incorporated the use of Lego for one of his limbs…

Impressive.True to its name, Lego pieces allow for an astonishing range of creative play opportunities. Beyond the fun factor, for younger children, the brightly colored pieces and easily interlocking combinations provide hours of patterning practice and fine-motor development. Looking for just the right piece strengthens sorting skills, a key part of the kindergarten math curriculum. And for all kids, Lego teaches how to think in three dimensions a precursor to physics. Children of all ages also hone creativity, problem-solving, and teamwork through Lego play.

Patti

July 17, 2015 at 10:22 am

I use Legos to teach about the development and organization of the Periodic Table. It’s an excellent way to start the unit!

Christine

July 18, 2015 at 12:12 am

I like the idea to use Lego in class for the visual learning.. Specially in math. I will try to apply. Thanks

Loretta Schamberger

September 3, 2015 at 2:49 pm

These are wonderful ideas! Our school is a Magnet school focusing on science and technology. We have a stem lab and have used Legos, but these ideas have broadened the way to teach our youngsters.